Tag Archives: xray

Dublin

22 Saturday May 2010

Posted by in Crumlin cutbacks, Diary, health, hospital, hse, Jono, kyphosis, photos, scoliosis

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Yesterday was Jono’s check up in Dublin. So we set off bright and early for the hospital. Lucky this time there were no hold ups on the train.

Jono had his xray first and then got to see one Doctor. Then we had to wait to see the consultant. The consultant is a really nice man and explained everything to us and showed us the xrays. There is a gap between two of Jono’s vertebrae above where he had the fusion done. It has increased slightly since the last appointment. At the moment he is going to leave well alone as he said Jono is still healing. We have to go back again in October and see if it’s progressed anymore and if it needs surgery. Hopefully it’ll stay the way it is.

In the middle of the doctor talking to us a little child came into the room and started playing with the toys…it was very hard to hear what was being said and it took the childs mother about 5 minutes to come and take the child out of the room!

Anyway the consultant wrote lots of details about curves/degrees etc and he told us next time to come to the adult clinic as it’s less of a ‘zoo’….his words not mine.

After all that we made out way back to the city centre and had lunch/dinner in a fab Chinese place that had an all you can eat buffet…yum. We had a quick look around the shops. I got Lucy some little bits and pieces in a fab shop I found in the GPO arcade and Jono got himself a Pokemon Nintendo 64 console from the game exchange shop on Talbot Street.

We spent today recovering, it’s mad when you think it’s just under 8 hours return trip from Sligo to Tallaght on public transport. We did get a brief walk down to the beach today so that was nice.

Sunday and Monday

20 Tuesday Oct 2009

Posted by in asperger's syndrome, Crumlin cutbacks, Diary, health, hospital, hse, Jono, scoliosis

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Scenes from the hospital

So as you know I had to take Jono up to Crumlin for his pre-op assessment. We got the 1pm train from Sligo on Sunday. It was really busy, there were some musicians sitting opposite us and we were wondering if they were famous. Also on the train was a Harry Hill lookalike and even a man the spitting image of Alf Garnett. The worst thing was that there was a man sitting opposite us who was coughing and never put his hand up once…..isn’t that awful. So I’m not surprised that I now have a cold.

When we got to Connolly Station we caught the Luas to the hotel, we had enough time for a quick swim and a dip in the jacuzzi which was nice. We didn’t have a very good nights sleep in the hotel. First of all the kettle, tv and hairdryer wasn’t working so we had to change rooms and then we were put right above the bar which had a band playing. Blimey O’Reilly if it was Magnum, Marillion or The Feeling I’d have been delighted but it was pub singers singing a whole range of songs including hits by Neil Diamond, Bonnie Tyler and a load of 60′s hits. I’m just glad they didn’t play Michael Buble because I would probably have thrown something out of the window ;)
When the band finished then the fireworks started….nothing to do with the hotel but they went on for most of the night and there was me thinking fireworks were banned here.

On Monday we were up bright and early and got to Our Ladys Hospital just before 8am. We had to wait for a while in a little waiting room. I was starting to worry when a little boy started pointing at me and saying Barney. I was convinced I was turning purple and growing a tail until I turned around and saw a painting of Barney the dinosaur behind me….phew.

When Jonathan was called things started moving fairly quickly. First of all the nurses took his blood pressure, weight, height etc. Then he had to go off for blood tests, followed by xrays. After we’d had a cuppa he was off to have his photo taken. The photographer had a lovely canon camera (not that I’m jealous). Jono had to have his photos taken from every angle. Then it was time for the lung function tests which were really tough for Jono, he hated having the plastic tube in his mouth and started to feel really sick. So they did what they could with him.
After a couple of drinks of water he was well enough to go for physiotherapy. He had his muscles tested and the physiotherapist was going to give him some exercises to help his muscles but he is in so much pain she said that she couldn’t give him any to do. Then swabs were taken by the nurses back on the day ward, they were all fine except for the mouth one which made Jono feel ill again, it’s to do with the Asperger’s syndrome he just hates anything like that.
Finally he had a ecg/echo and thought it was cool to see his heart on the screen and then we got to talk to the spinal nurse who explained all about the operation to us.

We won’t know if the surgery is to be carried out on the 27th until Thursday, which I think is mad, but it seems that’s how it’s done.

Towards the light

13 Thursday Aug 2009

Posted by in dad, grief, health, hospital

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Towards the light, originally uploaded by magnum_lady.

Grief is a funny old thing. Just as you feel that life is back to normal and everything is going OK, it jumps up and bites you in the bum.

The kids were watching a video of them when they were babies and all of a sudden my dad appeared on screen….I burst into tears and then felt really bad. I’m the sort of person that holds everything in and puts a brave face on things so it really took me by surprise. (For those of you that aren’t regular visitors to my blog, my dad died at the end of March.)

Not that I think Dad should still be here (which sounds awful) but he really suffered in the last years of his life.

To give you a brief rundown. Dad was well until seven years ago. He had a bit of high blood pressure from time to time and also had angina which made him slightly breathless but apart from that he was fine.
He was a keen photographer, also a very handy man, did up lots of houses over the years. He also loved going out and about.

Then mum got ill, she was diagnosed with cancer and had to spend 6 weeks in St. Luke hospital in Dublin. While she was there dad ate rubbish and his blood pressure went up.

Mum came home from hospital and dad ended up in it! The doctor said he needed to have a stent to unblock a partially blocked artery. Mum and I were both against it as dad really wasn’t that bad and we felt if he started looking after himself he would be OK.

Dad was stubborn though and said the proceedure would give him a ‘new lease of life’. It did that alright, he ended up having some kind of reaction to the dye and got kidney failure. So spent 3 days a week having to go into hospital for dialysis.

It wasn’t too bad in the beginning (apart from having his spleen ruptured by a doctor trying to remove fluid from his lungs).
At least when he recovered from that and mum recovered from her bowel surgery they were able to go out occasionally.
It was hard work having both parents ill at the same time though.

Anyway a couple of years ago dad was complaining of a pain in his leg. A doctor told him he had pulled a muscle and gave him some pain killers. Ten days later dad was still in a lot pain so finally an xray was taken……but no one thought to look at it and sent dad home.

The following day dad got up and fell and broke his wrist, we called an ambulance and got him to hospital where they also realised he had a broken hip for ten days. So he ended up having two operations and was in hospital while he recovered.

It more or less finished his life though, his confidence had gone and he was very depressed, to top it all off he fell again last year in the hospital and broke the same hip again. Poor Dad he ended up not able to do anything at all for himself. He had the stent because he didn’t want to just drop dead of a heart attack (his words not mine), but I think if I had to make that decision I know which way I’d rather die.

Rest in peace dad, I hope you are happy now and not in pain anymore xxxx

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